7 ms·

Sounds like ideologic revisionism to me.

KSS42 8y ago
How so? What is "ideologic" about examining his record with respect to the rule of India (and Ireland)?
whyisthewhat 8y ago
The old history was written on the basis of an ideology that considered nonwhite lives to be worth less than white ones. It is in dire need of revision.
coldtea 8y ago
Only because we easily dismiss the evil perpetuated in the colonies, push those things under the rag, and revise history to rewrite Hitler as the only evil in the world. It's understandable to some degree. After all, Churchill and colonialists just enslaved and killed inferior third world peoples (who cares about them), while Nazi Germany occupied and killed westerners...
- ben_w 8y ago
  What I find most curious is that exactly one of the groups the Nazis systematically slaughtered went from being widely regarded as an acceptable target for racist degradation to being given a country, despite ~2,000 years of being treated as literally the servants of Satan, while the other groups the Nazis targeted only gradually gained equal rights. What’s up with that? I wish we could give every disadvantaged group something like that. Although hopefully we’d learn lessons from creating the modern state of Israel and avoid a repeat of the six day war.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    This is perhaps most apparent with the Romani, who were targeted for extermination by the Nazis and are still hated today by a great many Europeans. It's always surprising to me how many Europeans chime in whenever this point is raised with "Well actually..." defenses for why their prejudice against Romani is justified.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      This is from the Guardian, not some right wing newspaper: "Most recently, postal workers said they were so frightened delivering in Eastwood after being mugged for their parcels that they no longer went out alone. “They are terrified because of the level of intimidation,’” said Champion. She went out on a round with two postal workers: “If I wasn’t with two post people, I would have been running away. I was really shocked how bad it was.”" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/03/roma-tire-shouldering-blame-boiling-pot-communities https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/03/roma-tire-sh... This is because of poverty, lack of schooling, a culture of mistrust of the outsider (on the Roma side too), etc. But it doesn't disappear if people close their eyes because they have some idea that all groups of people behave statistically the same.
      - ficklepickle 8y ago
        Is it the chicken or the egg, though? Do they behave this way because they are inherently inferior or because they have been marginalized by society for hundreds of years? I truly believe that being rejected by society leads to antisocial behaviour. It doesn't excuse it, but it does explain some of it.
        coldtea 8y ago
        >Is it the chicken or the egg, though? Obviously it's not the people as human beings at fault. There is no "bad DNA" involved. Nobody is "inherently inferior". >I truly believe that being rejected by society leads to antisocial behaviour. It doesn't excuse it, but it does explain some of it. Sure. But whether it's the chicken or the egg matters when accessing the overall situation. When many from a group of people causes problems where you live, you don't care as much for the historical origins of their behavior, you first and foremost want the problems to stop. Now, if those people complaining where also historically part of the problem (e.g. historically rejected/oppressed the Roma), we could care less about their complaints.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    The Israelis weren't entirely given Israel, they took it at gunpoint ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947%E2%80%931949_Palestine_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947%E2%80%931949_Palestine_wa... ). Anti-semitism is still a real problem and there are plenty of people willing to claim that the k word is "acceptable". What was unique was the coordination of the diaspora to achieve the founding of the Jewish state.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      As always, the world seems to be messier and more complicated than I realise.

How so? What is "ideologic" about examining his record with respect to the rule of India (and Ireland)?

The old history was written on the basis of an ideology that considered nonwhite lives to be worth less than white ones. It is in dire need of revision.

coldtea 8y ago

Only because we easily dismiss the evil perpetuated in the colonies, push those things under the rag, and revise history to rewrite Hitler as the only evil in the world. It's understandable to some degree. After all, Churchill and colonialists just enslaved and killed inferior third world peoples (who cares about them), while Nazi Germany occupied and killed westerners...

ben_w 8y ago
What I find most curious is that exactly one of the groups the Nazis systematically slaughtered went from being widely regarded as an acceptable target for racist degradation to being given a country, despite ~2,000 years of being treated as literally the servants of Satan, while the other groups the Nazis targeted only gradually gained equal rights. What’s up with that? I wish we could give every disadvantaged group something like that. Although hopefully we’d learn lessons from creating the modern state of Israel and avoid a repeat of the six day war.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  This is perhaps most apparent with the Romani, who were targeted for extermination by the Nazis and are still hated today by a great many Europeans. It's always surprising to me how many Europeans chime in whenever this point is raised with "Well actually..." defenses for why their prejudice against Romani is justified.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    This is from the Guardian, not some right wing newspaper: "Most recently, postal workers said they were so frightened delivering in Eastwood after being mugged for their parcels that they no longer went out alone. “They are terrified because of the level of intimidation,’” said Champion. She went out on a round with two postal workers: “If I wasn’t with two post people, I would have been running away. I was really shocked how bad it was.”" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/03/roma-tire-shouldering-blame-boiling-pot-communities https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/03/roma-tire-sh... This is because of poverty, lack of schooling, a culture of mistrust of the outsider (on the Roma side too), etc. But it doesn't disappear if people close their eyes because they have some idea that all groups of people behave statistically the same.
    - ficklepickle 8y ago
      Is it the chicken or the egg, though? Do they behave this way because they are inherently inferior or because they have been marginalized by society for hundreds of years? I truly believe that being rejected by society leads to antisocial behaviour. It doesn't excuse it, but it does explain some of it.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >Is it the chicken or the egg, though? Obviously it's not the people as human beings at fault. There is no "bad DNA" involved. Nobody is "inherently inferior". >I truly believe that being rejected by society leads to antisocial behaviour. It doesn't excuse it, but it does explain some of it. Sure. But whether it's the chicken or the egg matters when accessing the overall situation. When many from a group of people causes problems where you live, you don't care as much for the historical origins of their behavior, you first and foremost want the problems to stop. Now, if those people complaining where also historically part of the problem (e.g. historically rejected/oppressed the Roma), we could care less about their complaints.
- pjc50 8y ago
  The Israelis weren't entirely given Israel, they took it at gunpoint ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947%E2%80%931949_Palestine_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947%E2%80%931949_Palestine_wa... ). Anti-semitism is still a real problem and there are plenty of people willing to claim that the k word is "acceptable". What was unique was the coordination of the diaspora to achieve the founding of the Jewish state.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    As always, the world seems to be messier and more complicated than I realise.